Seals are used in an aircraft engine to isolate a fluid from one or more areas/regions of the engine. For example, seals are used to control various characteristics (e.g., temperature, pressure) within the areas/regions of the engine and are used to ensure proper/efficient engine operation and stability.
Brush seals are a type of seal used to provide for fluid isolation in the manner described above. A brush seal may be implemented as a bundle of bristles sandwiched between two plates, where the bristles are frequently made of cobalt and the plates are made of nickel. A welding technique, e.g., tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, electron beam welding (EBW), etc., is applied to form the brush seal from the bristles and the plates. The plates may then be subjected to a finishing technique to remove/add material to accommodate at least one dimension of an application environment where the brush seal is deployed. In this respect, the brush seal that is manufactured is customized/tailored to that particular application environment.
The engine/engine core may have relatively small areas/cavities that need to be sealed. The manufacturing techniques described above become ineffective as the dimensions of the brush seal decrease, as it can be difficult if not impossible to machine the brush seal. Still further, the structural integrity of a conventional brush seal can be compromised if the dimensions of the brush seal are too small.